PULSE JET units, slung under wings of a Mustang ... Pic

[WebPilot]

I wish I had a picture of this in the skies.

Later,

-fde

[Mark]

Interesting, the length to diameter ratio if you are out there Bruce Simpson.
Mark

[larry cottrill]

Forrest, do you know what they are - original Argus mills, full-size clones, or what?

L Cottrill

[WebPilot]

Mark Mumby,

Nothing peculiar about these engines - they look similar to that tested in naca-wr-e269, dated October, 1945.

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Larry Cottrill,

This picture and the other I posted of a P-51D with ramjets on the wingtips, came out of a magazine dated February, 1949.

The article was about "test beds", but there was no further discussion of this configuration. However, I did discover in the photo credits section, that this and the other picture I posted in the ramjet section are NACA photos.

In the 1945 article forementioned above to Mark, I quote:

"The pulse-jet engine used in the investigation is a reproduction of the German engine used in World War II for propelling the V-1 flying bomb."

My guess is they are one and the same. The United States designation is PJ-31.

Later (and happy holidays),

-fde

[Mark]

I guess it could be the angle but to me they appear about 7 feet long with a length to width ratio of roughly 7 to 1. How long was the V-1 pulsejet and did they ever use different sizes? Do you think the ones pictured could be 10 feet long? How long do they look to you Forrest or does anyone else out there have an idea or guesstimate?
The ones under the wing do look very similar to the picture I have in a WW II book with several buzz bomb engines on the ground among American soldiers. For some reason though they look short and stocky under the Mustang wing.
Mark

[Hank]

Hello- The first launch of the Fi-103 on the night of June 11, 1944 saw ten of these airframes catapulted in the general direction of the City of London. Six of them worked as planned. Three were demolished duds. One came in for a belly landing and was dissassembled for study. Whithin one week the airframe and engine was loaded into a B-24 and flown to Curtiss-Wright Field in Caldwell, NJ, now called Caldwell Airport It was there that study was done of the Argus engine. There was a test cell built on the grounds of the airfield which stood until 1962. I remember that the center area for instrumentation between the two test cells had pinewood panelling with thick glass windows for viewing the cells. By the end of September Ford Motor Company had a contract for a direct copy designated the J-35. I have no doubt that information exists regarding this contract. Contact with Ford by me produced nothing. Anyone know anything re this?
These photos, though dated late 40's, are of modified P-51's used in tests started in 1945. The data provided by the flight tests showed what a turkey the pulsejet was. The contracts for production, 10,000 engines by Ford to power airframes produced by aviation subcontractors, quietly and rapidly disappeared.
Hank

[Bruno Ogorelec]

The contracts for production, 10,000 engines by Ford to power airframes produced by aviation subcontractors, quietly and rapidly disappeared.

True, but not before several hundred were produced. See lady workers at Ford stacking the casings that await valve heads.

[WebPilot]

Bruno,

How can you tell?

It looks like Black and White TV with a bad antenna ;-)

Later,

-fde

[Hank]

Bruno,

How can you tell?

It looks like Black and White TV with a bad antenna ;-)

Later,

-fde

Yeah ,man, change the channel on the Emerson.
Nice photo, Bruno. What is the source. A first view of this one for me.
Rosy playing with large tubes.
Hank

[Bruno Ogorelec]

Bruno,

How can you tell?

It looks like Black and White TV with a bad antenna ;-)

Ah, so I need an antenna? Damn. OK, I'll get one. No one told me this. I thought, if I just connected two cans with a long piece of string, and took one can to the TV studio...

More seriously, it was a very small picture in a very old magazine article blown up a great deal. Here's another one, showing the tubes waiting for assembly. They built an impressive number of them before the project got the axe, as you can see.

Surprisingly few seem to have survived. I know of only a couple. Unless there's hundreds of them sitting mothballed at the edge of some desert airstrip somewhere...

[Bruno Ogorelec]

I just found out more. The figures on pulsejet engine production at Ford vary between 1200 and 2000. Alas, their fate is ignoble. The engines not used in the testing of Air Force and Navy missiles were definitely not mothballed, but shipped to Pacific and dumped someplace off Okinawa!

See http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smiths ... jul96.html

What a sad end.

[Mike Kirney]

I counted about 100 jets in that second pic. Those were the days.

[Bruno Ogorelec]

I counted about 100 jets in that second pic. Those were the days.

Yes. Sex was safe back then. Except for irrate husbands.

[Mike Kirney]

By the way, it's very good to see WebPilot posting on the forums again. Forrest, did you ever get your jet to work?